In my family we hardly have any trinkets, treasures, or heirlooms from generations past. However, when I was a little girl my mom sang me a Finnish lullaby, which her mother sang to her, and her mother sang to her and so on... I had never seen the words to the song before or had any idea of the translation until someone from Finland helped me discover what the song was and translated it for me.

Pew Pow Bang!A hare gallops in the forestwith a reindeer(’s) bell on her neck(name) jacket (is) hung up on a nail.

Seeing the words and knowing the translation of my lullaby has somehow made the song more real to me and has made me think differently of it. To me, it's as real as any physical object, and it was brought by my ancestors from Finland and passed down generation to generation. I am suddenly aware of a special family heirloom and am contented knowing that I have something of the past which can be carried into the future.

Through ancestry.com, I've recently discovered that some of my ancestors who claimed to be Finnish are actually Sami. According to wikipedia, The Sami people are the Arctic indigenous people inhabiting Sapmi, which today encompasses parts of far northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway. The Sami are Europe's northernmost and the Nordic countries' only officially indigenous people.

There is not a lot of available information on the Sami people, but this ancestry is an important and meaningful discovery for me. I am going to do what I can to learn about my ancestors and explore my journey through my art. I hope you'll join me for the adventure. To the right you see that I've painted myself in Sami clothing. The banner reads a short poem which I wrote about my great grandmother for the occasion:

"For as brave as she was, shame muted her.The Stronger hand crushed down.But wiser was the paper trail,that let her voice be found."